Democrats' turn in the spotlight

Sheri Morgan, photographed Friday, July 22, 2016 with her Bernie Sanders sign, will be headed to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia on Monday.(Photo: Markell DeLoatch, Public Opinion)Buy Photo

GREENCASTLE - Sheri Morgan ran for delegate to the Democratic National Convention on April 26 and lost.

But her bags are packed and she leaves Sunday for Philadelphia. The Greencastle woman who chairs the Franklin County Democratic Committee is a delegate to the convention.

A representative from the Bernie Sanders Campaign presented her name to the Pennsylvania Democratic State Committee, who selected her as a delegate during their meeting on June 11 in Scranton.

“It was a complete and utter surprise to me, and I’m a hard one to surprise,” Morgan said. “I had kind of put the convention out of my mind.”

She had turned instead to the local political arena and was preparing the party’s new headquarters.

Morgan’s three adult children will be in Philadelphia with her. Because they are not delegates, they can’t be on the convention floor, but they will be outside among the demonstrators focused on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, fracking and civil rights.

“I have very engaged adult children,” Morgan said. “They have been engaged since pre-school. They are concerned about opportunities for everybody.”

They will be carrying signs that have accumulated in the Morgan family over the years, but the delegate won’t taking any inside. The convention has banned signs.

Morgan said she is not sure what her role will be at the convention and awaits her marching orders from the Sanders campaign.

“You leave the dance with the one who brung you,” she said. “I’m very excited. I’m a pretty strong progressive, left-leaning Democrat.”

The Sanders campaign was the most exciting in the past six or seven Democratic primaries, she said. The ideas of the Vermont senator align with hers.

Morgan is among 20 party leader/elected official representatives from Pennsylvania - 11 for Hillary Clinton and nine for Sanders.

“It doesn’t matter to me whether the nominee is Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders,” Morgan said. “It’s a movement. I got the movement message. I understand the purpose of the movement: To bring back the Democratic Party to its left-leaning roots.”

She closely followed the Democratic National Committee’s drafting of a party platform in June, even texting the proceeding to her friends.

“The Democratic platform is non-binding,” she said. “Democratic candidates up and down the ticket don’t have to abide by it. Unless you hold their feet to the fire they can pick and choose what they want.”

Kathleen Hendricks of Fulton County is also a delegate to the convention. She was one of five elected from Pennsylvania’s 9th Congressional District. She too is a Sanders supporter.

Public Opinion will publish Morgan’s daily reports from the convention starting Monday.